


Frustration and various other conundrums

by somefinditodd



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Sexual Tension, that's it!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26690572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somefinditodd/pseuds/somefinditodd
Summary: In which Nayeon is an overworked, severely stressed college student who just wants to sleep. It's just that her neighbor is too damn loud.
Relationships: Im Nayeon/Minatozaki Sana
Comments: 16
Kudos: 237





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing (and reading) sad, tragic Sanayeon fics so here's some non-angsty Sanayeon. It's what we deserve.

There are a few things Nayeon knows about her neighbor. Like the fact that she keeps a row of plants by her windowsill on especially sunny days. Or that she’s the only person in the entire floor of the apartment complex to decorate her door according to the season (currently, there are little stickers of fall leaves and a cartoon pumpkin.)

And also, she’s really fucking loud.

It all starts on the day that her neighbor first moved in about a month ago. It was at a rather unusual time-- more than halfway through the semester-- so Nayeon isn’t really sure if the girl is also a student. But that information no longer matters to her. 

Nayeon does remember getting a brief glance of the girl’s back as she walked to her door with a few bags of groceries. It was barely a hint of unusually bright orange locks and a kind of adorable jeans and crop top outfit combination. 

Okay, Nayeon considers herself to be a relatively social person. She likes the company of other people and isn’t easily startled. But the sound of her neighbor’s voice seems to reach decibels that could penetrate through several well insulated walls. Sometimes she’ll be speaking in a foreign language (was it Japanese?) for long periods on the phone or she’ll be singing along to a song that she clearly doesn’t know the lyrics to. 

There are moments when Nayeon longs for her previous neighbor. A rather quiet tall young girl who spoke maybe a total of ten words to her within her year-long lease. Oh, the peace that she took for granted...

Nayeon is pro-fun. She would vote for fun and enjoyment if they were a policy and she was a policy maker. But she’s also a very busy and tired college student trying to balance her part time work and classes with little to no sleep. So any time she does have to rest is very precious.

So, that’s how she finds herself standing in front of her neighbor’s apartment just a few minutes past midnight trying to contain her frustration from breaking the door with her knocks.

The hallway is dark and a little bit spooky with that one flickering light that the complex still hasn’t minded to fix. The pumpkin stickers on the door look more sinister under this light. After almost thirty seconds of no answer, Nayeon considers running back to her room because she’s starting to remember the scary ghost stories that Jeongyeon had told her a few weeks back.

As she ponders her options, the door in front of her creaks open after some fumbling from the other side. And she meets… a really pretty girl.

In full view, she could finally see the orange hair in detail, a hint darker than the image she had in her head. Her neighbor dons a fluffy looking pink robe over a set of nice looking pyjamas. 

_Get it together, Nayeon._

“Can I help you?” The girl asks with her familiar voice, eyes wide and sparkling like she’s an anime character and not a real person. 

Nayeon opens her mouth and nothing comes out. 

Holy shit, did she forget how to speak?

The pause seems to have given the girl in front of her a moment to scan Nayeon, and she suddenly feels self conscious. In a blind fit of rage, she had gone out in nothing but a thin sleep shirt and her child-sized Doraemon shorts.

_Oh my god, the fucking Doraemon shorts. Curse you, you adorable blue bastard._

“Ah, you’re the cute girl who lives next door right?” her neighbor greets happily, and there’s so much about that sentence that Nayeon wants to pick apart. But now is not the time. 

“Right.” Nayeon finally manages to croak out, clearing her throat and standing up straight as if she isn’t even slightly humiliated by the situation. 

“It’s late. You’re loud. I’m trying to sleep, so please be quiet.”

“Oh.” The girl at least has the modestly to look guilty and Nayeon pretends that the little pout she just made didn’t make her want to rescind her stern request. “I’m so sorry. I’ll keep it down.”

“Good.” Nayeon nods, but she’s not sure if it’s towards the girl or herself. 

They realize they’re just standing there in the middle of the night exchanging glances. 

The girl doesn’t make any sort of movement to shut her door and Nayeon makes no movement to return to her apartment. 

“What’s happening?”

“I’m not sure. What do you want to happen?”

Nayeon almost scoffs at the… _audacity_ of this woman to say that with that smirk not a minute after being berated about how loud she is. 

“I want to go to sleep.”

“Okay. I’m not stopping you.” This glint of amusement paints her neighbor’s face and it’s kind of… cute. 

Nayeon is about to say something else but they’ll probably end up standing there until the next day. Her stubbornness made her consider this for a moment but she has a pretty important class in the morning. 

“Goodnight.”

And she’s already darting quickly to the safety of her own apartment. 

“My name’s Sana, by the way!” is exclaimed from behind right before her door slams shut.

Nayeon leans against the door for a moment. And it’s absurd, really. How she’s standing there in the middle of the night with her Doraemon shorts and her heart beating fast like she just ran a marathon. 

\--

Everything is fine. The random feeling of peace as she woke up that morning and then that same evening as she went through her class notes was almost alarming. Not even a single peep from the usually rambunctious next door neighbor. 

For a moment, Nayeon worries about the girl. 

She’s probably fine. 

By the weekend, where Nayeon definitely, definitely expected to hear noise... there was nothing. 

There’s nothing wrong. 

“I think the girl next door is dead or something.”

There’s sigh from the other line. Before- 

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Who greets someone on the phone like this?”

“Listen, I’m serious Jeong. I haven’t heard anything next door for more than a week. You think I should call the police?”

“Uh, yeah. So they could arrest you for being a creep.”

She should’ve known Yoo Jeongyeon would be useless. 

Hear Nayeon out here. When your usually very loud neighbor, one who seems to have some sort of microphone that projects sound at negative infinity decibels, is suddenly dead quiet out of nowhere-- okay, maybe you berated her in the middle of the night and rudely slammed the door without properly introducing yourself. 

Absurd. 

Nayeon attempts to distract herself by utilizing free time through cleaning up and doing her laundry. She went grocery shopping, grabbed some ice cream on the way, patted a cute dog she spotted on the sidewalk. Surely by then, at precisely 4.27pm, her neighbor would be belting out some popular ballad while cooking her meal. 

But what greets her is silence. 

Nayeon stares at the wall while shoving morsels of food into her mouth. She chews. And looks. Sound travels in waves, even a tiny little movement by the material of the thin wall that separates them will answer her questions. 

She chews, moving to stand from her chair without breaking eye contact with the wall. Will she really do it? Will she really press her ear against the wall like some perverted creep?

But then again her neighbor could be in trouble. Maybe she’s using some sort of discrete morse-code-type of communication through light taps against the wall asking for Nayeon’s help. 

As she presses her head closer to the wall--

_Thud!_

The sudden sound almost sends Nayeon toppling back from surprise. 

There’s a familiar sigh muffled from the other side of the wall. 

The emotions that went through her: absolute fright, a flood of relief and then the irreversible sense of shame that followed seem to happen in the span of four seconds. There’s a second female voice that follows and Nayeon runs back to her seat as if they could X-ray her wall. 

Well she’s not dead. 

The voices are hard to ignore when it’s dead silent in her own apartment right now. Maybe she should put on some music or something. 

It literally feels like a weight off her shoulder to know the other girl is fine. Never has she appreciated the boisterous nature of her neighbor until today. She should mark this day in her calendar. Said appreciation lasts for about five seconds. 

There’s another thud and a groan. 

Maybe someone hit their toe. That’s a justifiable groan of pain. 

But after the thud is another set of thuds. Almost rhythmic in nature that it seems purposeful. 

They’re probably… hammering a picture frame. 

The groan is back and Nayeon could not find anymore specific possible scenarios for the noises other than-

“My neighbor is having really loud sex.” Nayeon announces as soon as the door swings open. 

“Will you ever greet me like a regular person?” Jeongyeon says, moving aside to let her friend in. 

“I mean, I _just_ told her she’s being too damn loud,” Nayeon walks straight to the kitchen, opening the left cabinet drawer to grab a glass for herself. Behind her, Jeongyeon’s roommates filter in and out while giving her a polite greeting of acknowledgements like she also lives there.

“And now here she is being louder in the most… loud way.”

“Wait,” Jeongyeon says, resting a chin on her palm as she watches Nayeon pour the last glass of _her_ orange juice in _her_ Nayeon-assigned cup. “This is the same neighbor that was supposed to be dead? So she’s definitely not dead. Sounds like she wants to make more life.”

“That’s… disgusting.” Nayeon looks at her like she wants to spit the orange juice from her mouth, and then averts her gaze for the next phrase. “But also she was with another girl so that doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Ahh.. uh huh, I see.”

“What. What do you see?”

“What does she look like?”

“My neighbor? She’s… fine. She has orange hair and nice skin. And her eyes are these ridiculously wide ones that make her look like - what are those cute little cartoon animals?”

“Uh huh.”

“Stop with the “uh huh” I hate it when you do the “uh huh.”

\--

It’s a great day today. 

The birds are chirping prettily from the trees. The sunlight is filtering through the gently swaying leaves, some venture down and float in a merry pattern as it hits the ground. 

And Nayeon’s neighbor is already having loud sex (again). 

Okay, for the sake of accuracy, it was relatively quiet at first until it ultimately crescendoed into a less than respectable level. 

“Please god, just a few more minutes of silence…” Nayeon groans into her pillow. 

Unfortunately, whichever higher being Nayeon was praying to did not seem to listen as the noises next door proceeded to escalate. 

It’s only a little bit awkward when she finds herself face to face with a stranger gingerly closing her neighbor’s door later that morning. 

“Um,” Nayeon starts, an awkward way to announce her presence to the girl with mussed up hair and a deer-in-the-headlights expression that meets her. 

The other girl straightens up and greets in what could only be described as the greatest faux casual tone Nayeon has ever heard. 

“Hello, good morning.”

“Good morning.”

The girl is already walking backwards, away from the conversation and towards the stairs after a polite bow to Nayeon. 

“Hello neighbor!” Nayeon turns to the door that she didn’t even realize was opened at some point. 

“Holy fuck!”

And there stands Sana, who dons an equally mussed hair like she just had some sort of sex marathon the whole night (she did, Nayeon was unfortunate enough to listen to it.) 

What differs between her and the woman earlier is that her neighbor looks her right in the eye like she wants to devour her alive.

“I still don’t know your name, by the way…” She has a small pout on her face and Nayeon knows this pout. She’s practically invented this manipulative pout. Though credit should be given where it is due, her neighbor pulls it off almost as good as she can. 

“That’s because I didn’t give you my name.”

“Now would be the perfect opportunity.” 

Nayeon can’t tell what it is. The reason why her neighbor with her shiny hair and that smirk in her stupidly flawless face (maybe it’s her moisturizer) that gets right under her skin. 

“I’ll tell you my name if you stop having loud sex against our very thin walls.”

This is the part where all other possible (more acceptable) responses flash through Nayeon’s mind. Some worth mentioning:

  1. “My name is Nayeon. Let’s be good, respectable neighbors! Here’s a cake I baked.”
  2. “Hey, actually I just wanted to mention again if it was possible for you to keep it down during the night? Thank you for understanding. Here’s a cake.”
  3. Literally anything else other than what she actually said.




	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies it took so long for this chapter! I got stuck for a bit. Thanks so much for all the support for this story. I really appreciate it. Let's keep this Sanayeon train going... choo choo (sorry)

Nayeon is not, and she cannot emphasize this enough, she is _not_ scared of her neighbor.

She just happens to time leaving her apartment a little earlier than usual in the morning to make sure she won’t run into her. That’s not the same as being scared of her neighbor. If anything, she’s doing a service for herself and said neighbor to avoid any possible awkward encounters. 

Let’s all say it together:

Nayeon is not afraid of her neighbor. 

“Why are you so scared of your neighbor?” Jeongyeon half whispers when Nayeon pulls her back to hide behind a wall in her apartment building. 

Her good friend was kind enough to drive her to the grocery to pick up the essentials she couldn’t haul into a bus. And so they crouch with full grocery bags and a 6 pack toilet paper that her friend is currently leaning onto.

A few steps ahead is Sana (the neighbor in question), who seems to be rummaging through her bag while standing in front of her door. 

“I’m not.”

“Ok, then why the hell are we hiding behind a wall, watching your neighbor like a bunch of creeps?”

Nayeon struggles to refute the statement. Jeongyeon makes a pretty good point. 

A scene from a few days ago flashes back into her mind. That morning she confronted her neighbor about her… rather loud extracurricular activities. Nayeon shakes her head, as if the memory, like smoke, billows away from the comic shaped cloud that hangs above them. 

“Fine.” Nayeon straightens up, still clutching her friend’s arm (the one holding onto the toilet paper) as they walk towards her apartment door. 

Naturally, they catch Sana’s attention. She looks up from her bag with a frown, which fades into a bright smile upon recognizing Nayeon’s figure approaching. 

“Hello neighbor.” Today Sana wears a casual outfit of a white tee shirt and light jeans. Of course she pulls it off like a catalogue model that stepped out of a magazine rather than a regular person. 

Nayeon is dead set in pretending she didn’t hear anything and just zooming into her apartment. But, Yoo Jeongyeon, the far more polite member of society halts their steps to greet back. 

“Hello Nayeon’s neighbor! My name is Jeongyeon.”

“Sana.” She smiles in a way that might melt the butter inside Nayeon’s grocery bag before turning to her neighbor with a smug smile.

“Nayeon.” It’s the first time the girl has ever actually uttered her name and she does it with playful eye contact, like they’re sharing a little secret. And Nayeon really has to get into her apartment to put the butter in the fridge before it starts to puddle up from it’s liquid form. 

Sana’s eyes scan Jeongyeon for a moment (she’s very unsubtle about it) before moving on to Nayeon like she’s making a virtual link in her head. 

“Well, it’s nice to see you. We’ll be going.” Nayeon concludes waving with the keys in her hand. 

“I’ll see you around, _Nayeon_.” 

She didn’t have to say her name like that. 

As soon as the door of her apartment is shut, Nayeon waits for a beat until she hears the echoed jingling of keys and door closing from the other side of the wall. 

“What the fuck was that? Why would you greet her like that?”

“Like what? A normal person?” Jeongyeon has already made herself comfortable on the couch, unfazed by the older girl’s over dramatic tendencies. “Also, your neighbor seems nice.”

Nayeon huffs in annoyance, placing her bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. Jeongyeon just doesn’t understand. 

Okay, maybe this is the time to reveal what happened on her last awkward exchange with her neighbor. 

Nayeon likes to think of herself as patient. Though, her close friends (Yoo Jeongyeon) might immediately protest this and maybe she’s right to some extent. Of course, everyone’s patience can reach a limit at some point. 

The limit for Im Nayeon just happens to be that morning after running into her neighbor’s hookup, and her neighbor having the _gall_ to ask for her name. 

“I’ll tell you my name if you stop having loud sex against our very thin walls.”

Sana’s expression morphs from confusion to shock to slight embarrassment. At least she has the courtesy of actually looking sorry this time. 

“I completely forgot you can hear...” 

“Everything, yes. Just please keep your activities within an appropriate time frame?” Nayeon crosses her arms, an action that serves as a form of intimidation and defense as she stares at her neighbor who still looks slightly sleepy as she blinks back in a way that other people might find cute. 

“You mean you want me to have open hours?-”

“Ok, ‘open hours’ is… not the term I would use.”

“-like some sort of dentist’s office?”

She can’t believe she needed to talk to her neighbor about her loudness twice. Twice is more than enough to get one’s point across, right? Surely, by the second time, the person would have had more than enough time to absorb the information and act accordingly. Surely.

“You sound stressed.” Sana accompanies her deduction with a nod to herself like she cracked the code to something important. 

Nayeon might actually attack her. 

“No shit I’m stressed. Not all of us can afford to mess around with… whoever every night.”

Surprisingly, Sana looks unscatched from her biting words. 

“You should really find an outlet for your...feelings. It’s not healthy to keep it all in like that.”

“W-what...” Nayeon stutters, wondering how this girl seems to always find a way to gain the upper hand in these bizarre interactions they’ve been having. 

“You know, like a hobby. Some people meditate…” Sana runs a hand through her bright, ruffled hair and Nayeon’s eyes follow like a hawk. “Sex is a good one, I hear.”

Nayeon huffs. Uncrosses her arms before crossing them again. 

“Just… please be quiet!” She turns around to hide the burning of her cheeks and swears she heard a little chuckle from behind her. 

Nayeon tells the story with her whole face hidden by her hands, as if recalling a traumatic event to her therapist. The therapist in this scenario is Jeongyeon, who is shoving pieces of popcorn into her mouth as she listens on like she’s watching an entertaining movie rather than her friend’s embarrassing recollection. 

“She’s right. You do need to get laid.” Jeongyeon sits up from her lounging position, dusting her hands from little debris of salt. 

“How _dare_ you even make a comment—”

“I’m just being honest here. How long has it been since your last relationship? Three months?”

Nayeon looks away, biting her lip before mumbling an embarrassed response. 

“...it’s six months.”

“Holy _shit_. Ok, I’m sorry. It’s not that bad. I meant ‘oh, holy shit.’”

“That sounded exactly as bad.”

“No casual hookups? Nothing?”

“What kind of a person do you take me for, Yoo Jeongyeon?!”

“There’s no shame in that. We’re adults now.”

Jeongyeon’s words, though absolutely absurd in nature, echoes in Nayeon’s mind as she slept that night (with minimal noise from next door, thankfully.) As her eyes drift shut and slumber takes over, she just hopes to never run into her neighbor again. 

  
  


\--

Scared or not, one cannot simply avoid running into someone of such close proximity forever. Nayeon ran into her previous neighbor (the quiet tall girl whom she never knew the name of) at least four times even though the girl seemed to always be quiet from her side. Sooner or later, the universe will just align in a way that such statistically probable events eventually occur. 

The statistically probable event happens at a bar, at precisely 11.27 pm on a Friday night. It’s that exhausting Friday, where she had classes from 7 am and a shift at her part time job from the afternoon until late in the evening. 

The day had been rather terrible. She couldn’t understand what her professor was talking about during the lecture and most of what she said felt like it went through one ear and immediately out the other. 

The creepy regular customer at her workplace lingered around for a few hours and would try to get her attention while she busied herself with, well, her job. 

And now, after clocking out at 10.24 pm and taking the bus back to her apartment, arriving at 10.45 pm all she wants to do is take off her clothes and pass out in her bed. Except she had promised her friend Momo to go out later that night. 

Nayeon is many things to Momo. She’s one of the first people to boldly approach her to partner together in the class they shared during their freshman year. The one who patiently takes her time to explain the things that Momo finds confusing, and never mocks or belittles her.

But, most importantly, Nayeon is-

“The pretty unnie who buys me food.” Momo had introduced her casually once. 

Since Nayeon has been buried with work lately, she promised to meet up with Momo and absolutely not cancel under any circumstance. 

(This promise was declared in a dramatic gesture on her knees with a cute stuffed animal as an offering after cancelling on the girl three times in a row.) 

She sighs in defeat, moving to get herself ready to go out. It’s just light makeup and whatever clean, presentable clothes she has hanging up in the closet. 

Nayeon looks at her comfortable bed longingly, the pillows so soft like the clouds of heaven itself. Her phone beeps with a message from Momo, letting her know she’s already at the bar. 

“Oh shit.” Nayeon murmurs as she struggles to slip on her shoes before rushing out the door. 

There is some very basic science behind it. Or is it math? Something about lack of rest and high level of stress plus alcohol equals not very good. Unfortunately, Nayeon seems to have been unaware of this important equation as she throws back her third shot of the night with a grimace and the sound that an old man might make escaping her lips. 

The bar is dark, save for a few christmas lights hanging up and the fluorescent glow from the old school looking jukebox and some arcade machines in the corner of the room. 

“I’ve missed you, Unnie.” Momo murmurs with a giddy (alcohol induced) smile across the table.

“I missed you too, Momoring.” Nayeon hums back at almost the same level of intoxication as her companion. She’s not usually this affectionate but also she’s a little bit drunk. 

When Nayeon glances up, her eyes catch the movement of the door as it swings open with a muffled creak. Maybe it was all of the times that she actively avoided the other girl, that accumulated over time and led up to this moment. Or, more likely, the fact that this bar is only a few minutes away from their shared apartment complex.

Whatever the reason, Sana is walking in by herself looking all glamorous and shiny in her formal attire of a skirt and blouse combo and a blazer hanging in her arm. Did she ever mention her job? Nayeon wonders why she’s dressed like that.

“Unnie, what are you staring so intensely at?” Her gaze focuses back to Momo who wears an amused smile paired with intoxication. “Let me guess, it’s either a pretty girl or food.”

Momo didn’t have to call her out like that.

“No, don’t-” Of course the girl whips her head back to the direction that her friend was looking in the most obvious way possible. “... turn around like that… Jesus, Momo stop looking that way. I’m serious.”

Momo’s expression shifts into slight confusion. 

“Why are you looking at Minatozaki Sana?”

Ah, so that’s her full name. It’s pretty. 

“Wait, you know her?”

The girl sitting across takes a long sip of her drink through the straw before answering:

“Yeah, we hung out a little bit.”

This answer strikes Nayeon as odd. First of all, it seemed like Momo needed a second and some recharged power from an alcoholic beverage to spit it out. 

“Wait… what type of hanging out?” Nayeon asks. 

“Like what we’re doing now…”

“Oh, ok good.”

“Except with some kissing.”

“Jesus christ. She’s my neighbor.”

“Oh cool.”

“So, you dated her?” Nayeon tries to ask casually.

Momo scrunches her eyebrows like she needs to think of how to answer the very simple yes or no question. 

“We were never dating. It was just, uh, casual.”

Casual. Why does she keep hearing that damn term lately? Why is everyone around her having casual relationships?

Just then, Yoo Jeongyeon’s voice echoes in Nayeon’s mind like Yoda might to Luke Skywalker in one of those Star Wars films:

“You need to get laid.”

The message lacks the depth or wisdom one might expect from a Jedi master, but leaves a profound mark in Nayeon’s mind nonetheless. 

“Let’s do more shots.” 

So the equation goes like this: tired plus stress plus alcohol equals very, very drunk. The confirmation of Nayeon’s state of drunkenness comes with trying to close off their tab with a library card. 

“Pretty unnie who pays for my drinks.” Momo, who is surprisingly the more sober one of the two, thanks Nayeon with a tight hug. “Thanks for spending time with me today. I know you’ve been really busy.”

“Thank _you_ for making me feel better.” She’s such a sappy drunk. Nayeon wouldn’t get caught saying anything this genuine and heartfelt that isn’t laced with sarcasm as a sober person. 

When Momo drags Nayeon up to the stairs of her apartment, hand secured on the older girl’s waist as the ground starts jiggling in a way that seems to defy physics. 

“I’m drunk.” Nayeon mumbles. 

“Yes, you’ve said that about three times.” Momo huffs as they conquer the final few steps. 

“Just sayin’...”

“Unnie, hand me your keys.” Nayeon opens her eyes (when did it close?) to stare at the girl holding her up. Momo’s blonde hair looks so nice. She wonders how it would feel in her fingertips. 

Momo has taken the proactive step of feeling for the keys in her pockets. 

“Excuse me! How dare you touch my butt without permission…”

“Nayeon-unnie, this is important!”

“Consent is important!”

Just as Momo looks like she’s about to scream a louder response, the light from next door flickers open. A moment later, the door opens. 

“Nayeon?” It’s Sana, with another one of her fluffy robes and a sleepy expression. Her eyes move to Momo and a look of surprise takes over. 

“Sana.” Momo says. 

“Momo.” Sana says back. 

“Nayeon.” Nayeon announces to no one in particular. 

  
  



End file.
